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Thursday, December 1, 2011

Unexplained Strangeness in Bully

Have you ever come across a character
in a game whose back-story isn't explained, despite the fact that we
know the back-story could be awesome, even to the point of rivaling
the main storyline? It's annoying that game developers sometimes
leave interesting stories out of our games, so that we may only
speculate in forums or (shudder) fan fiction. But as with all media,
the authors can't explain everything or the games/movies/books would
never be released. In this article I'm going to be looking at some of the weird things in Rockstar's Bully game that have unfortunately gone unexplained.

But wait a second, Bully? A game about a kid taking over a private school? You might be thinking that other than the exaggerated high-school
setting, there's nothing too interesting happening in
the background. But keep in mind that this is a Rockstar game,
remember all the crazy things you heard on the car radios in the Grand
Theft Auto games? Not to mention the supposed Bigfoot sightings in GTA San Andreas. Bully surprisingly contains some aspects from the
science fiction and horror genres.

The presence of aliens is strongly
implied in the game. One of the missions in Bully has you collecting
transistor radios for a hobo camped out next to the school. Once
you've given all the radios to the hobo, he builds some kind of
device, and then is promptly pulled into the sky by a huge tractor
beam, never to be seen again.

Beam me up Jimmy!

That's not all the alien evidence
either. Later on in the game you get access to the nearby asylum,
where you discover more hints. In one room is a portrait of a
scientist standing next to what looks like a little alien:

Like all conspiracy theories involving aliens, low quality photos are to be expected.

Further exploration takes you to a room
with X-ray images hung on a wall. Some of these images appear to
show an alien's head.

I don't know about you, but when I was playing
through Bully I definitely wanted to learn more about the alien
presence in the little town this game is set in, it seemed more interesting than the
game's plot of taking over the school.

Earlier I also mentioned horror aspects in
Bully. It is hinted that there is a werewolf inhabiting the area.
In the same X-ray room mentioned above, there are also an X-ray
showing what appears to be a wolf-ish head on a human body. Nearby in
the asylum is an area that looks to have once been barricaded off. When you come across this area, the barricades have long since been violently destroyed, giving the
appearance that something has broken out of the asylum. Another fun
thing Rockstar added to this game is a werewolf mask that you can
equip. The interesting part is that the mask has a facial scar similar to that of the game's main antagonist Gary (coincidence?).
Add to that the occasional howling sounds that can be heard at night,
and you have one fun side-story that the developers have left mostly
to our imaginations.

This concludes my look at some
interesting story possibilities in Bully that have yet to be explored in
depth. What kind of unexplained game stories have you guys come
across?